Review: Lucan's Civil War

On all counts this translation of the Pharsalia is a resounding success and will, one predicts, stand as the definitive English version. Readers discontented with Robert Graves' idiosyncratic and often misleading prose translation will welcome this verse edition by Widdows with its readability, accuracy, and, above all, its poetic sensibility. Lucan ardens and concitatus in the original is easy to make flat and ponderous in English, but in Widdows' hands he retains his fire and momentum. For one thing, Widdows' choice of meter, the English hexameter, works remarkably well at capturing the nuances of the original. For another, the translator's command of English diction is superb, as a glance at his rendering of the exordium will show. Widdows manages to sustain his capture of Lucan's tone, be it in the narrative sections, the rhetorical ravings of the speeches and apostrophes, or the sententiae. To illustrate: here is his rendering of the famous victrix placuit passage: "Impossible to determine/Which had the juster cause, for both had impeccable sanction:/Gods on the conquering side, but Cato choosing the conquered."